Ashran Images, Including Horde and Alliance Bases

We learned yesterday that the Horde and Alliance bases in Warlords of Draenor would be in Ashran, rather than in Karabor and Bloodspire as was previously anticipated. Wowhead made our way to Ashran to take some screenshots of the PvP island, and the Horde and Alliance bases. Ashran is situated off the coast of Tanaan Jungle, accessible by boat. You can observe the peninsula layout of the current Horde and Alliance bases.

It is very obvious from several of the pictures that these zones are unfinished, but nonetheless an interesting preview.

You can also see Community Manager Lore's post below, explaining the details and thinking behind the Ashran bases, and several tweets aimed at reassuring players.

Community post on Ashran Faction Hubs

Following the reaction to the news, Community Manager Lore took to the official forums to explain the developers' reasoning and to reassure some players:

Lore

Okay, there’s a LOT of misunderstandings and misinformation floating around, so let me try to clarify what I can.

Warlords of Draenor’s story is about the people of Azeroth (namely, the Alliance and the Horde) venturing into an unknown world and building up a force strong enough to take out an enemy stronger than anything they’ve encountered before, on that enemy’s own turf. While there are certainly some alliances to be made along the way, and those are definitely major parts of the story, the core theme is about you and your faction fighting for survival.

So, as development continued, we came to the realization that it just doesn’t make sense for the Horde and Alliance to spend so much energy and resources building up a stronghold on Draenor, only to base their efforts out of someone else’s city. We’re not helping the Draenei or Frostwolves fight off the Iron Horde – they’re helping us. The Alliance and Horde both have major bases of operation on Draenor. That should be where they’re working from.

That, along with the continued development of Garrisons into the overall quest and story flow of the expansion, led us to the decision to develop the Horde and Alliance bases on Ashran into the major faction hubs instead of Bladespire and Karabor. Promoting the world PvP area on Ashran is a nice perk, but it wasn’t a factor in making that decision.

That said, the Temple of Karabor and Bladespire Fortress are still there. We haven’t removed them or anything like that. You won’t be able to use your bank or check your auctions there, but they’re still fully built home cities for the Karabor Draenei and Frostwolf Orcs, respectively. You’ll still be able to explore them in their full glory.

As to the Alliance and Horde staging areas on Ashran, allow me to lay out a few key facts to hopefully allay some concerns:

They’re located on Ashran as a geographical location on the map, but they’re not part of the Ashran world PvP zone. They won’t be subjected to the realm coalescing we’re using to keep Ashran’s PvP area populated, and they won’t flag you for PvP on non-PvP realms.

We’ve also made some major improvements to the way PvP flagging works on non-PvP realms that removes “accidental flagging” from mistargeted abilities or ground effects. Unless you manually flag yourself by typing /pvp, you will simply not be able to attack enemy players, or heal friendly players who have flagged themselves.

They’re populated with guards, and the only land-based entrance is directly through the Ashran world PvP zone (including a major fortress). It’s certainly possible for someone from another faction to attack it, but it’s not any easier to do so than it is to attack the enemy faction’s shrine in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms.

There will be a fast travel option between the staging areas and your Garrison. You can pop over there quickly, conduct your business, and leave again if you like.

This isn’t a question of whether or not Bladespire and Karabor are cities. They are. It’s just a question of whether the portals to Orgrimmar or Stormwind are there or somewhere else. You’ll still be able to explore them, they’ll still be fully populated, and they’re still going to be every bit as beautiful as they would have been with a Transmog NPC. We’re looking forward to them ourselves!

Blue Tweets on Ashran Hubs

The change was first announced on Twitter, and several developers responded. Click below to see all the tweets!

댓글

Shak14의 댓글

It looks so good for Ashran but the excuses they made up for it are beyond disappointing...

bloodykimbel의 댓글

on 2014-06-28T13:40:00-05:00

looks like the patch 5.3 faction bases.

guitar92의 댓글

on 2014-06-28T13:42:40-05:00

Again Horde cities are only in orcish style.... The garrison has orc buildings everything is.. Its getting kinda old in my opinion.There are other races in the Horde not only orcs and as a whole the Alliance architecture style is better looking but thats just my opinion as a Horde player.

OridanIX의 댓글

on 2014-06-28T13:44:03-05:00

I still think it's really disappointing how they've gone back on things since Blizzcon. And the excuses they've come up with for switching to Ashran capitals is a load of Tauren dung if you ask me. I wish I hadn't pre-ordered, as I'm not getting the game I was promised at Blizzcon.

bloodykimbel의 댓글

on 2014-06-28T13:48:47-05:00

to be fair im glad they didnt make karabor and bladespire the faction capitals.in not a singly expansion was the capital city in the starting zone.i love the idea you first have to familiarize with the enviroment befor you get to the capital city

BrokenFingers의 댓글

on 2014-06-28T13:55:01-05:00

It is a shame blizzard did not announce this change earlier in development instead announcing this right when the beta is out because a lot of people were expecting their main cities in karabor and bladespire. If blizzard did announced this change earlier, players would not make this change a big deal as it is now.

planetjeff의 댓글

on 2014-06-28T13:56:54-05:00

His "clarification" was piss poor and insults any reasonable person's intelligence.

It doesn't matter if it's not right smack dab in the middle of Ashran. It's on the island. It's not Karabor/BSF.It doesn't matter if Karabor/BSF are still there, they are not the faction hubs as we were told at Blizzcon.They want to get people out into the world but they're going to be adding portals left in right due to Ashran being an out-of-the-way island.

Karabor and BSF are no longer the faction hubs which is the ONLY thing that matters. That is what people are pissed about, and saying stupid &*!@ like "you can still see them DUURRRRR" is a waste of everyone's time.

Let's see how childish these people are with their PR:

Bashiok ‏@Bashiok 20h@SeanMcFarlan @CM_Lore So an island in the water is not ok, but an island in the sky is? Weird.

Deliberately missing the point. That is how children argue, not adults.

Bundletif의 댓글

on 2014-06-28T14:04:22-05:00

Thanks for the update! Lucky most of us understand that things can change during game development. Now send me a Beta invite!:)

Fishpie의 댓글

on 2014-06-28T14:06:06-05:00

His "clarification" was piss poor and insults any reasonable person's intelligence.

It doesn't matter if it's not right smack dab in the middle of Ashran. It's on the island. It's not Karabor/BSF.It doesn't matter if Karabor/BSF are still there, they are not the faction hubs as we were told at Blizzcon.They want to get people out into the world but they're going to be adding portals left in right due to Ashran being an out-of-the-way island.

Karabor and BSF are no longer the faction hubs which is the ONLY thing that matters. That is what people are pissed about, and saying stupid &*!@ like "you can still see them DUURRRRR" is a waste of everyone's time.

Let's see how childish these people are with their PR:

Bashiok ‏@Bashiok 20h@SeanMcFarlan @CM_Lore So an island in the water is not ok, but an island in the sky is? Weird.

Deliberately missing the point. That is how children argue, not adults.

this, a thousand times this. it's %^&*ing disgusting how they're reeling back nearly everything they mentioned at blizzcon, anyone else remember them saying "you can have your garrison in any of these locations" then after pre-orders died down we're plonked in only 1 place per faction? alliance dont get their pretty temple, horde dont get our glorified tower. @#$%ing disconnected island attatched to what might as well be tol barad.

maelgwyn1의 댓글

on 2014-06-28T14:29:06-05:00

They’re populated with guards, and the only land-based entrance is directly through the Ashran world PvP zone (including a major fortress).

So to travel to and from my faction hub on my mount I have to cross the pvp zone? Not liking the sound of that...

JaceRaifel의 댓글

on 2014-06-28T14:31:23-05:00

Yea, I find their "Reasoning" to be quite lackluster myself.

"We’re not helping the Draenei or Frostwolves fight off the Iron Horde – they’re helping us"

So... you're saying they can't help us by offering up their most easily defendable locations so we can fortify them and use them as a base camp that's both closer to the enemy AND looks a hell of a lot more appealing than another Stormwind/Orgrimmar?

Makes a lot more sense than somehow finding the materials to build MULTIPLE big ass bases that match our archetecture... I can see having a few like our Garrisons and other Quest Hubs but another huge Capital as well? How does that sound like we're stranded? Sounds to me like we're easily able to go back to Azeroth and get what we need...

EDIT- Thought came to me, only good thing about this IMHO is that us Hordies may be able to check out Karabor. Bout it tho.

gamerbob07의 댓글

on 2014-06-28T14:31:58-05:00

Again Horde cities are only in orcish style.... The garrison has orc buildings everything is.. Its getting kinda old in my opinion.There are other races in the Horde not only orcs and as a whole the Alliance architecture style is better looking but thats just my opinion as a Horde player.

You're on Draenor, the Orc homeworld. I do not think the blood elves are going to bring their craftsman and masons to make pretty spires. I don't think the Tauren are going to carve totems out of your resources. No one (lore-wise) is going to care about the undead style really...you see where I'm going.

You have a Goblin foreman and Orc builders from a portal Khadgar made to connect to Org, one he said he could only keep open for a moment, plus your materials are from the Orc world you're on...

I understand your complaint, but I wouldn't expect them to add different racial style flares to the garrisons.

Rankkor의 댓글

on 2014-06-28T14:32:52-05:00

Its gonna take a lot of "reassurances" to convince me why a generic human fortress is gonna be better than Karabor.

We're talking about the uncorrupted pristine BLACK TEMPLE here.

This is like replacing Optimus Prime with Scrappy-Doo.

Or like replacing the T-rex with that crappy whocares-a-saurus in Jurassic Park 3.

Or replacing Yoda with Jar-Jar in every future star wars movie.

There are some things that are too sacred to mess around with.

As a proud hordie I'm not "too" upset about this change because, cool as bladespire was, its just not on the same league, not even close, with the temple of Karabor. So replacing a generic tower, with a generic horde base elicits a disinterested "meh" from me.

But replacing the amazing temple of Karabor for the appropriately named "Fort Copypaste" is sacrilegious at best, infuriating at worst.

So yeah, bottom line is: They just got their work cut out for them, its gonna take A LOT of good reassurance to convince people that Generic Human Base number 15 is gonna be a more suitable replacement to the frikking legendary temple of karabor.

Come on, THE temple of karabor :'(

BosephHeyden의 댓글

on 2014-06-28T14:40:41-05:00

Yea, I find their "Reasoning" to be quite lackluster myself.

"We’re not helping the Draenei or Frostwolves fight off the Iron Horde – they’re helping us"

Oh, that reasoning will be even dumber late in the first patch when you're one-shotting all these supposed fearsome enemies.

planetjeff의 댓글

on 2014-06-28T14:46:09-05:00

As bad as it was not having new hubs in Cata, does anyone actually think we would have been better off with hubs on Tol Barad? Aside from Tol Barad being instanced it's the same thing.

No... no one believes we would have been better off. The people defending Blizz's decision are simply being contrary and trolling for conflict.

ekif의 댓글

on 2014-06-28T15:05:30-05:00

Your reasoning is a tad flawed. Tol Barad is in the Old World which is already populated with faction hubs.

A better example would be Dalaran which is a hop, skip and jump away from wintergrasp. The hubs in WoD are not in the pvp area much like Dalaran.

Legacyjr2의 댓글

on 2014-06-28T15:08:10-05:00

This is a very bad idea.

Gotobetroll의 댓글

on 2014-06-28T15:13:59-05:00

*cough cough* the racial capitals are in their starting zones *cough cough*

Canio의 댓글

on 2014-06-28T15:14:16-05:00

I think Shattrath should be the capital for both the horde and alliance so that we can have a shared capital again.

Villager720의 댓글

on 2014-06-28T15:34:34-05:00

You're on Draenor, the Orc homeworld. I do not think the blood elves are going to bring their craftsman and masons to make pretty spires.

I understand your complaint, but I wouldn't expect them to add different racial style flares to the garrisons.

Falcon Watch, Firewing Point, and the Sanctum of the Stars were all pretty buildings the elves made last time they swung through Draenor. Even with all those "orcish" stones and lumber.